Statute of Limitations on Sexual Abuse Lawsuits in New Hampshire

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Author: Tina L

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A statute of limitations is a law that puts a time limit on when you can file a lawsuit or when the government can file criminal charges. Sexual abuse cases filed in civil court against the abuser have a deadline that survivors need to follow or else potentially lose their case on technical grounds. Fortunately, this deadline is geared toward helping survivors get damages for what happened to them.

Under current New Hampshire law, we have no deadline for filing a sexual abuse claim against a defendant if the conduct involved matches with certain criminal conduct. However, that law does not appear to be retroactive and might not apply to cases where the statute of limitations had already run under the previous version of the law. As such, it is important to have a lawyer look back at previous versions of the statute and help you determine how long you have to file your case.

Contact the attorneys for sexual abuse lawsuits in New Hampshire at The Law Office of Andrew Shubin for a free case assessment by dialing (814) 826-3586.

The Current Statute of Limitations on Sexual Abuse Claims in New Hampshire

In the 2020 legislative session, the New Hampshire legislature changed the statute of limitations found in RSA 508:4-g to remove any filing deadlines for sexual abuse claims. However, there are still some tight restrictions on what kinds of cases this change refers to.

These amendments to the law had an effective date of September 18, 2020, so cases taking place before that might not use the same filing deadline. If your abuse took place before this date, our lawyers for sexual abuse victims in New Hampshire can help you determine the filing deadline for your case.

Adult vs. Child Victim Claims

Under the current language of 508:4-g, there is no reference to the age of the victim. This means this law applies equally to adult victims and child victims.

The previous version of the law said it applied specifically to cases involving a victim under 18, which would have put the filing deadline at 12 years from the date that the victim turned 18 (i.e., the claim would expire on their 30th birthday). There was also a “discovery rule” allowing victims to file within 3 years of discovering the harm to them, even if that was well after the victim turned 30.

Since the previous version of the law did not apply to adults, they would conceivably have 3 years under the normal rule for injury case deadlines, RSA 508:4.

Conduct Fits Certain Criminal Law

RSA 508:4-g applies specifically to conduct that would qualify as a crime under RSA 632-A, the code section for New Hampshire’s sexual assault statutes, or 639:2, New Hampshire’s incest statute. RSA 632-A’s sexual assault statutes include many different acts of sexual penetration as well as sexual contact, meaning that what happened to you does not necessarily have to qualify as “rape” for it to meet the conduct requirements.

Note also that these rules reference the criminal statutes, but there do not actually need to be criminal charges filed for you to file a civil claim. If there was a criminal case, and the defendant was convicted on criminal charges in these categories, then you would not need to prove their conduct separately in your civil trial; that would have already been taken care of in that criminal case. If there was no criminal case, you can still file your civil claim.

Qualifying Defendants

Because the claim refers specifically to conduct under those criminal statutes, the open-ended statute of limitations only applies to lawsuits against the specific perpetrator. In some cases, you can file a claim for sexual abuse against an institution that failed to protect you, such as a church or a school that allowed an adult to abuse you. These cases cannot rely on the open-ended time limit, however, because the institution was not the one who committed the specific acts of sexual assault needed for the statute of limitations to apply.

Is New Hampshire’s 2020 Sexual Abuse Statute of Limitations Retroactive?

It appears that when the New Hampshire legislature changed the law in 2020, it did not make it retroactive. In some states, laws can be made retroactive to apply to situations taking place before the changes to the law. However, the law usually requires the legislature to specifically state that the law is retroactive, and New Hampshire did not do that here.

The legal analysis with regard to statutes of limitations seems to go that when the statute of limitations expires on a case, the defendant now has a vested right to not be sued. Since that vested right cannot be taken away, defendants cannot usually be sued if the statute of limitations already ran against them. Recent cases have used this application of the law to reject claims under RSA 508:4-g.

However, this creates three time periods for cases that need to be addressed with different rules. First, if your abuse took place after the law changed on September 18, 2020, it unquestionably uses the new statute of limitations, and the claim can be filed any time. Second, if the abuse took place before September 18, 2020 but the original limitations period had not run out yet, it might still be possible to file at any time, but the law is not certain. Lastly, if the original limitations period already ran by September 18, 2020, the case is likely barred.

If you are in the second category, it would be best to file before the old limitations period ran out. For adult victims, that would mean 3 years, but that time limit would have already run by the writing of this article. For child victims, that would mean filing before you turn 30.

In the event that your statute of limitations under the old rule ran out after September 18, 2020, it is possible your filing deadline was extended if the defendant’s right not to be sued had not yet “vested.” This is a technical distinction, but it is definitely worth discussing with a lawyer.